Divine Mercy: The Heart of the Gospel

The Mercy of God and Modern Medicine 159 mysteries o f the divine mercy over which the heavens are astounded! Let our judgement o f souls cease, for God’s mercy upon them is extraordinary (1684). I often attend upon the dying, and through entreaties obtain for them trust in God’s Mercy and I implore God for an abundance of grace, divine grace, which is always victorious. God’s Mercy sometimes touches the sinner at the last moment in a wondrous and mysterious way. Outwardly it seems as if everything were lost, but it’s not so! The soul, illumined by a ray o f God’s power­ ful final grace, turns to God in the last moment with such a power o f love that in an instant it receives from God forgiveness of sin and punishment, while outwardly it shows no sign either o f repen­ tance nor contrition because the souls at that stage no longer react to external things. Oh How beyond comprehension is God’s mercy. But, however, there are also souls who voluntarily and con­ sciously reject and scorn this grace! Although a person is at the point o f death, the merciful God gives the soul that interior vivid moment, so that if the soul is willing it has the possibility o f return­ ing to God. But, sometimes, the obduracy in souls is so great that consciously they choose Hell; they thus make useless all o f the prayers that other souls offer to God for them and even the efforts o f God H imself... (1698). I am going to tell you a story to illustrate that. It happened early on in my priesthood and it is one o f the experiences that has given me abid­ ing trust in the Chaplet. When I was two years ordained, the Chrism still not dry on my hands, I was called to a hospital for a veteran who was dying. I was called to the bedside of someone I did not know. The nurs­ es told me that they found that he had a rosary in one o f his drawers, so that was why they called for me. Someone has remembered that he was Catholic once upon a time. This man was an enormous man. He was now a wreck. He looked like nothing but a beached ship that was in a sandbank. His muscles were corded and distended. You could see that he had been about six-foot five. His arms and legs were covered with tattoos o f hideous demons. He lay there obviously in great pain, and I sat down by the head o f his bed and I began to speak to him about Our Lord’s love, about the Mercy o f God, and about the life that awaits us if we turn to Our Lord and ask for the forgiveness o f all our sins. He listened. There was a